I created a series of screen capture walkthrough guides to show people on the Beta Program how to use the Scrum Plug-in for Team System. I will be making more available on the "General Discussion" area of the forum as soon as I have time. But I thought I'd post a couple of them up here for people who are interested in what the Plug-in can do.
You will need Windows Media Player 9 to view these videos - they were captured with Windows Media Encoder 9 and use the Windows Media Video 9 Screen codec.
Walkthrough 3 - Creating a new Product Backlog Item
Creating a new Product Backlog Item.wmv [279KB]
The steps involved in creating a new Product Backlog Item are outlined below:
- Select your project in Team Explorer.
- Right click on the "Work Item" node and select "Add Work Item" then "Product Backlog Item"
- A new empty Product Backlog Item form will open up inside Visual Studio.
- Add a "Title" - this should be a task phrased in business terms (not technical). i.e. "Allow user to login to the system and change their settings."
- Add the "Sprint Number" that the Product Backlog Item will be completed in - i.e. "1"
- Enter the "Estimate Effort" it will take to complete this task - this is usually given in days.
- Enter the "Relative Value" - this is the relative value of the task to The Business.
- You cannot update the "Work Remaining" field - this is automatically calculated.
- You can add more details about the task in the "Description" field, you can also attach documents via the "Attachments" tab.
- To gain access to the Sprint again - navigate to "Work Items" > "Team Queries" > "All Product Backlog Items". This query lists all Product Backlog Items in the project.
Walkthrough 4 - Creating a new Sprint Backlog Item
Creating a new Sprint Backlog Item.wmv [1,709KB]
The steps involved in creating a new Sprint Backlog Item are outlined below:
- Select your project in Team Explorer.
- Right click on the "Work Item" node and select "Add Work Item" then "Sprint Backlog Item"
- A new empty Sprint Backlog Item form will open up inside Visual Studio. A Product Backlog is decomposed into a series of tasks (functional and non-functional) called Sprint Backlog Items.
- Add a "Title" - this should be a task phrased in technical terms (not business). i.e. "Create Login Page."
- Add the "Sprint Number" that the Sprint Backlog Item will be completed in - i.e. "1"
- Enter the "Estimate Effort" it will take to complete this task - this is usually given in hours (as a Sprint Backlog Item is a much more granular task - you should be able to estimate it in terms of hours rather than days).
- Enter the "Work Remaining" - this is the amount of work, in hours, that it will take to make sure this task is "Done". Updating this field will automatically update the "Work Remaining" field on the parent Product Backlog Item.
- Set the "Backlog Item Type" to be Task (it is by default). A Sprint Backlog Item can represent a Task, a Bug or an Impediment.
- Members of the development choose which Sprint Backlog Items they will work on during a Sprint. Thus it is up to the Individual to select their name in the "Owned By" dropdown. By doing this, the Sprint Backlog Item will appear in the "My Sprint Backlog Items" and "My Sprint Backlog Tasks" Work Item Queries.
- You can add more details about the task in the "Description" field; you can also attach documents via the "Attachments" tab.
- For the Product Burndown Chart to work correctly (and to be able to see how much "Work Remaining" there is on a particular Product Backlog Item) you need to associate the Sprint Backlog Item with its parent Product Backlog Item. Select the "Links" tab. Click the "Add" Button. You now have two choices - you can either enter the Id of the Product Backlog Item or you can browse for it. If you know the Id enter it into the "Work Item Id" field and click "OK". Otherwise click "Browse". You can now either select a predefined query to retrieve your Product Backlog Item, or you can select the "Title contains" radio button change "and type" to be Product Backlog Item and click "Find", this will list all Product Backlog Items. Select the Parent and click "OK".
- Save the Sprint Backlog Item.
Walkthrough 5 - Updating Sprint Backlog Items
Updating Sprint Backlog Items.wmv [840KB]
The steps involved in updating Sprint Backlog Items are outlined below:
- Select your project in Team Explorer.
- Expand the "Work Items" node. Expand the "Team Queries" node.
- Double Click on the "All Product Backlog Items" Work Item Query.
- Notice that Product Backlog Items that have links to child Sprint Backlog Items have a populated "Work Remaining" field. This is calculated by aggregating the "Work Remaining" fields of all child Sprint Backlog Items. This calculation is performed by the Scrum.Eventing.Service web service that is installed on the Team Foundation Server. Every time a Sprint Backlog Item's "Work Remaining" field is changed the web service is called and the parent Product Backlog Item is updated.
- Select the "Links" tab on a Product Backlog Item that has been associated with Sprint Backlog Items.
- Double Click one of the Sprint Backlog Items listed.
- Change the "Current Status" of the Sprint Backlog Item to "In Progress".
- Click the "Save" icon.
- Change the "Work Remaining" field value to 0 and set the "Current Status" of the Sprint Backlog Item to "Done".
- Click the "Save" icon.
- Double Click on the "All Product Backlog Items" Work Item Query. You should notice that "Work Remaining" field (in the list) for the parent Product Backlog Item has been updated. There is a slight caching issue - which means that the "Work Remaining" field on the Product Backlog Item form may not have been updated. The value has been updated, but this value seems to be cached and will only update once Visual Studio is closed and reopened.